In the modern computing environment, the user is presented with a variety of choices for displaying information processed within the computer. Monitors and display screens come in a wide choice of sizes, and many offer different display modes with varying resolutions. If the user switches from one monitor to another, it may be necessary to update the displayed information to accommodate the size and/or characteristics of the new monitor. Similarly, for monitors that are capable of operating in multiple modes, an update may be required when switching from one mode to another. For example, in one mode the monitor may provide a display that is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high, and in another mode the width of the display might be 1,024 pixels and its height can be 768 pixels.
The configuration of the display system can also change as a result of other occurrences as well, for example when a graphics system implements a change in display resolution. Whenever a change in display configuration occurs, the elements of the display might be placed at different locations relative to the overall shape of the display. These changes are particularly noticeable in graphical interfaces which employ a desktop metaphor to identify objects and applications for the user. In graphical interfaces which employ this type of metaphor, files, application programs and other objects are represented as icons that can be placed on the desktop by the user. A typical user may prefer to group the icons on the desktop in a manner which identifies their relationship to one another. For example, utility applications may be placed in one corner of the desktop, files in another, and other application programs in a third area. If the display changes, the icons may appear in different portions of the overall display. For example, an icon located at the fight edge of a 640 pixel wide display screen would be positioned near the center of the screen if the display is switched to a width of 1,024 pixels. Conversely, an icon on the right edge of a display having a width of 1,024 pixels would be positioned off the display if the display is changed to the 640 pixel mode.
In the past, when the size of a display changed, icons that were positioned off the display would be relocated to default positions on the new display. For example, they might be located along the fight edge of the display, beginning at the top right corner. An alternative approach is to scale the position of each icon in proportion to its position on the previous display.
While both of these approaches attempt to ensure that all objects in the prior display are visible on the new display, they do not preserve the grouping or relative arrangement of the icons from the original display to the new display. For example, approaches which employ only proportional scaling cause the icons to overlap or move apart, depending on the size of the new display relative to the original display. With either of these prior approaches, the user is forced to rearrange the icons on the new display in accordance with preferred groupings and manner of presentation. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a system for updating a display in which user preferences are maintained, to the extent possible, when changing the size and/or configuration of the display.